The Ties That Bind
by scififantasychic
Summary: This story takes place immediately before "Oh, My Goddess" and assumes Chris had been in the past, laying the groundwork for his plans, for some time before actually "saving" Phoebe in the attic. We follow him through the hours leading up to his arrival


Disclaimer: I own nothing Charmed.

Setting: just before "Oh, My Goddess"

The Ties That Bind

Chris orbed into the alley behind P3 where the portal had dropped him nearly two months before. Again it was night, and he could hear the faint rumble of the crowd inside, dancing to the sounds of one of those old bands his mom liked. He wiped the sweat from his face and forced it back through his hair. It was way too hot, even for summer, which meant it was almost showtime.

He reviewed the plan for the tenth time in the past hour. He would orb in just as Paige turned to stone and Phoebe fell - before his mom had a chance to come to the rescue. It was the only way to get them to trust him. He would appear like a white knight just over Phoebe - she always had a thing for those old fairy tales. The thought struck him as intensely sickening - she'd probably hit on him since, if he remembered history correctly, she was sort of on the prowl right about now. But if it got him in their good graces, so much the better. He didn't intend to be there long enough for her to find out who he really was anyway, so no harm done. He'd just have to remember not to grimace too noticeably when he ignored her advances.

There were a lot of things he'd have to remember - like calling his mom "Piper" for one, and keeping his eyes off her long enough to get the job done. The first time he saw her was here at P3, the night he'd arrived. He'd had to hide in an alcove when she opened the stage door to throw out some garbage. She was so young. He'd never thought she could be so young. It had taken several seconds after she'd gone back inside for him to remember to breathe again, and when he did, he almost wished he hadn't come. How could he ever be around her without hugging her, without telling her how much he loved her, how he missed her? He'd orbed away then, the tears in his eyes blurring both the alley he left and the abandoned house where he'd slept for the rest of the night.

He needed to sleep now as he stood thinking about that first night in the past. But he couldn't let himself sleep. Not if he wanted to be ready.

Chris left the alley for the sidewalk and joined the crowd pressing to get into P3. He wished he didn't have to worry about exposing magic so he could just orb in and avoid this interminable wait. But it was about that time of night when the early clubbers headed home for sleep before work tomorrow, so maybe he wouldn't have to stand among the herd too long.

"I've, uh, never been in here before," the guy in front of him said to his date.

"Oh, it's great. You'll love it." She was maybe half the guy's age, and the contrast between the two was startling. She was dressed in a red strapless mini, and he was in a suit with the tie just barely loosened. A professor, maybe, one who taught Latin or Greek or something. Anybody might have thought this guy had picked up a hooker if it hadn't been for the way she kept grabbing his hand like a crushing schoolgirl.

Chris noticed that the "professor" kept fingering something in his pocket - car keys, maybe. Nervous habit. Chris might have done the same thing with a girl like that. But then the professor brought his hand out of his pocket to push up his glasses, and Chris saw the tan line of a missing wedding ring.

"Jerk," he muttered.

The man at the entrance pointed to Chris. "I gotta stop at you."

"Why?"

"Fire codes. 'Til we clear out some, nobody else gets in."

Chris watched the professor and student walk toward the doorway as the bouncer brought the rope down in front of him. He covered his mouth as if to yawn, and underneath the groaning of the people in line behind him, whispered a rhyme.

"Your conscience strikes you hard tonight;  
Turn around. Go home. You know what's right."

The professor stopped in the doorway and glanced at the girl. "I can't do this."

"What?"

He pulled his wedding ring out of his pocket and placed it back on his finger. "I'm married."

The girl stood speechless for a full ten seconds before she slapped him and ran. The professor sighed and walked after her as the bouncer gave Chris a puzzled look and lifted the rope.

Chris shrugged. "Go figure."

He edged past the people on the steps leading down into the club and found a seat at the bar.

"What can I get you?" the bartender asked.

Chris recognized him - twenty years younger, maybe, but definitely Billy. He couldn't help but smile.

"Whatever's on tap."

As Billy turned away to fill the order, Chris looked to see if anyone was watching. "Sorry, Billy. Sometimes you just gotta have a drink." He motioned for a five dollar bill from the tip jar a couple of feet away. He felt a little bad about it, but Billy was going to come into some money in a few years. He figured he could afford it.

"Three bucks," Billy said when he put the beer in front of him.

Chris handed him the five. "Keep the change."

"It's late. I give up," he heard a familiar voice say. He glanced down the bar to the voice's source, and then quickly turned away. Paige and Phoebe were close enough for him to overhear their conversation.

"I hope you have more than 'none people' by now," Phoebe said.

"I got two. But they are oh-so-fine and oh-so-rich. They'll get more bids than anybody on your oh-so-long list," Paige answered.

"Yeah, but just two?"

"It's quality, not quantity, sister. Remember that."

Chris left the bar to find a table. What were his aunts doing out this late? With all the vanquishing they did, he would have figured they'd take sleep whenever they could get it. If he'd known they'd be here, he never would have come.

The thought struck him that his mom - no, _Piper_, he told himself - might be here, too. He'd finish the beer and leave soon, in that case. He couldn't risk them seeing him.

But he had been seated at a table for less than a minute when he heard Piper's voice passing somewhere behind him. "Leo."

"They're everywhere," he said to himself and fought between the urge to watch her and the good sense to shield his face. He settled for eavesdropping.

"What are you doing here?" Piper chided softly. "I told you I'd be home in a few minutes." She lowered her voice and spoke significantly. "I told you to be waiting for me."

"I couldn't wait," Leo said. "And I had an idea. How does a tropical island sound? No people, no demons, just you, me, and lots and lots of beach."

Piper laughed. "What about Wyatt?"

"I called in a couple of favors. Don't worry about him."

Chris focused on sensing where Leo had called in those favors. When he found Wyatt, he shook his head in disbelief. "Come on, Leo. The elves? No wonder Evil gets to him. You drop him with the first available babysitter every time you want to -"

"Let me just tell Billy I'm leaving," he heard Piper say.

Chris risked taking a look at her as she crossed the room to the bar. She looked amazing, so much better than he'd seen her just before coming to the past. Of course, she had been transparent then ...

It had been here at P3, or rather, the ruins of P3, with moonlight streaming through the exposed crossbeams and casting an eerie glow on the candles he and Bianca had positioned on the floor.

He handed the scrap of paper with the spell on it to Bianca, and he recited with her from memory.

"Hear these words, hear our cry  
Spirit from the other side  
Come to us, we summon thee  
Cross now the great divide."

He watched the light show of a manifesting spirit coalesce into a human form, but it was not who he'd wanted.

"Grams? I was calling for my mom."

"I know, dear," said his great-grandmother's spirit. "But we all know what you're planning, and we thought sending Piper would only agitate you further."

"I want my mom."

"It's important," Bianca added.

"I've been answering that call for almost thirty years now. It's always important." Grams turned back to Chris. "Darling, don't do this. The ability to travel through time was not given to us so we could change history. It is meant as a learning tool, something to help us acknowledge that there are just some things we can't change, no matter how much they need changing."

"Thank you for the pep talk, Grams. Now we don't have much time. Let me talk to Mom."

"Chris, listen to me. Everything happens for a reason - you know we've always said that. Your life is no different. All the adversity, all the sorrow - everything has made you better and stronger than anyone thought you could be. Use those experiences, use that strength, and deal with the problem here and now."

"You're telling me to kill my own brother, assuming it's even possible." Chris shook his head. "I won't do it. Give me Mom."

"Chris "

"Mom. Now."

"She's right, sweetie." Chris turned to where Piper had materialized a little behind Grams. They traded positions, Piper speaking as she came to the forefront. "If you go back, you could change things you don't intend to. Innocents could get hurt. People may die before their time. People who were intended for each other may never meet. You could change everything." She glanced briefly at Bianca. "Everything."

He took her meaning. "No. We're meant to be together. No matter what else happens, I'm sure of that. I'll find a way."

Piper smiled reluctantly. "You are your father's son." She paused. "There's nothing we can say to change your mind?"

His silence was his answer.

Piper glanced from Grams to her son. "What do you need?"

"Every oracle we've talked to has said the turn came sometime before Chris's birth," Bianca said. "But they can't tell us exactly when."

"Think back to that whole couple of years." Chris added. "Did you have any particularly close calls with Wyatt - did any demons get too close, and then after the vanquish you got the feeling that - I don't know - maybe something was still wrong?"

He watched Piper try to recall those twenty-year-old vanquishes, but when she glanced up from her thoughts, her word was not an answer.

"Wyatt!"

She and Grams disappeared as the candle flames were magically extinguished. Chris and Bianca spun around to face his big brother.

"What's going on here?" Wyatt said as he stalked toward them. When they didn't have an answer, he spoke for them. "Practicing magic without my consent."

Chris knew he had to cover quickly. "Do you know what today is, Wyatt?"

Wyatt narrowed his eyes.

"It's the day Mom died," Chris continued. "I just wanted to see her. Is that so wrong? I miss her."

Wyatt assessed them for a few more seconds before his expression softened. "I know you do. But I gotta tell you, Chris, you've had me worried. Leaving the Underworld without permission, and now this. And you, too, Bianca. You know you're just like a sister to me." He smiled knowingly at Chris. "You practically are." Wyatt stepped closer. "I need you, little brother. I need to know that I've got my family behind me."

Chris nodded. "You've got me."

"We would risk everything for you," Bianca added.

Wyatt stared at them for a moment, and his smile widened. "Come on. Let's get out of this dump." He orbed out then, and Chris knew he'd expect them to be just a heartbeat behind. He looked down at Bianca, taking in the meaning behind every one of her last words, and squeezed her hand before orbing with her back to the Underworld.

An especially loud drumbeat jarred him out of his reverie about the P3 of his memory and brought him to the P3 where he sat with half a beer in front of him. He drained the glass and walked to the stock room where Piper and Leo had orbed out a few minutes ago for their tropical rendezvous. As soon as he shut the door, he followed suit.

He orbed halfway across the world from Piper and Leo's uncharted island to another, infinitely more isolated tropical paradise, one that was, in fact, unplottable. It was daylight in Valhalla, and Chris scrunched his eyes against the sudden glare, searching for Mist, or any other Valkyrie, for that matter. She was supposed to meet him here in the forest clearing, and Valkyries were not known to miss appointments.

It was lucky he started walking in the direction of Freyja's hall, for at his first step a dagger flew through the air where his head had just been and embedded itself in a tree.

Four warriors charged toward him from the underbrush. He sent the first one sprawling back telekinetically, but before he could bring his arm down for another throw, he screamed at the pain of an arrow from a fifth warrior's bow splintering the bones of his hand. He grabbed his wrist instinctively; the throbbing sensation of blood draining from the wound spread through his whole arm and distracted him long enough for one of the warriors to tackle him to the ground. Before the warrior could land one good punch, Chris orbed out from under him, leaving the arrow to fall away.

He rematerialized deeper in the forest and closer to Freyja's hall. Three new warriors jumped down from the trees and surrounded him. He motioned with his good hand to throw the first of them and separated him from the sword he carried. The sword hovered for a split second before Chris sent it into the belly of the next warrior. But the third one grabbed him from behind and flung him backward into a tree. Chris slid to the ground, unable to breathe or focus his eyes, but still struggling to stand. A sword met his neck at the same time that a female's voice yelled out, "Hold!" It was a testament to Valkyrie training that the warrior was able to restrain the blade at that last moment.

"Heal them and send them back to training. They could barely stop a _whitelighter_."

Chris heard footsteps coming toward him through the underbrush but still couldn't really see who it was. A feminine hand braced his head and he felt a vial of some sweet-smelling liquid touch his lips.

"Drink."

He had little choice but to obey, and when he swallowed, he felt the warmth spread through his body. The pain in his head faded, his vision cleared, and he saw Mist kneeling beside him.

"Your hand," she requested. She held it gently in one of her palms and poured a few tiny drops of the liquid into his wound. The hole closed almost as quickly as if a full whitelighter were doing the healing.

"I can't take some of that with me, can I?" Chris asked as he flexed the fingers in that hand.

"Away from Valhalla, it is simply water," Mist answered.

Chris stood and watched Mist's followers lead the warriors back to their training area. He looked to Mist. "Where were you?"

"You were late. I didn't feel like waiting." She turned to follow her sisters.

"Ten minutes?" He fell into step beside her. "You couldn't wait ten minutes?"

"More importantly, Freyja couldn't wait. She doesn't entirely trust you. She cooperates only because I believe what I saw in you." She glanced over at him briefly, and continued. "If it is true, what you say about the final battle -"

"There is no final battle. He moves up the timetable and preemptively massacres everyone on this island."

"Then Freyja will have by default breached the oath she made to have this army prepared. She's not willing to risk that, however much she distrusts you."

"So why'd she send those warriors after me?"

"They weren't sent. Unaccompanied by a Valkyrie, you are an intruder. They attack any intruder."

"I was here for over a month. I helped Freyja step up their training. They know me!"

Mist smiled. "You've not been granted friendly status. Therefore, you're an intruder."

Chris stopped to stare at her in disbelief, but she kept walking. "I'd better get a nicer reception at home," he muttered.

The meeting with Freyja should have taken no more than five minutes of his time, but she kept him and Mist waiting for over an hour.

"Quickly, witch," Freyja said when she entered the hall and sat on her throne. "I have no time for you."

Chris swallowed the smart remark he was about to say and skipped straight to business.

"Is the cage ready?"

Freyja waved her hand before the cage behind him. "Yes."

"Wait - that's it?"

"You are welcome to test it."

Chris halfway grinned, not sure whether he could trust her, but then he locked himself inside the cage.

"Try orbing," Mist said.

His orbs bounced off the ceiling of the cage in a flash of light, and he fell back to the ground.

"That hurt!"

Freyja smiled. "I can make it less painful."

He got up and tried to shake off the numbness in his body as Mist opened the cage door. "No," he said after a moment. "No, it's good."

He stepped out and stood before Freyja. "I'll send the Elder to you in the next couple of days. I'll try to contact you before I do, but I can't guarantee anything. So be ready."

"How long must we keep him?" Freyja asked.

"I'm not sure. Not long. Just until I can finish what I came here for."

"Which is?"

"I can't tell you that."

"It involves the murderer I saw in his mind," Mist told her queen.

Chris caught his breath.

"He would be a child now." Freyja stared back at Chris, perhaps trying to see what Mist saw in him. "To kill or to save?"

Chris hesitated. "I hope ... to save."

"He speaks the truth," Mist said.

Freyja rose to leave.

"Freyja," Chris called.

She turned her head back, and Chris stepped a little toward her.

"If I fail ... Redouble your efforts. Accept only the best." He paused. "He'll still kill you, but maybe you can take a few of his demons with you."

Freyja nodded, and then left him alone with Mist.

"I gotta go," Chris said, but Mist grabbed his arm before he could orb.

"Chris." She drew him closer. "You won't fail. But be careful. For me." She kissed him then, and part of him enjoyed it. But the other part told him that he only enjoyed it because he was imagining Bianca.

Mist must have caught the image of his thoughts, because she pulled away abruptly, the confusion on her face giving way to a faint smile of resignation. "And for her."

Chris didn't turn on the lights when he orbed into his apartment. Actually, it was one of the six apartments he'd "borrowed" in the time he had spent in San Francisco. Most had been in fancier neighborhoods where the tenants could afford to go on vacations or traveled frequently on business, but he liked this apartment in its shabby neighborhood so near a major highway that traffic sounds became as much a part of the background noise as a refrigerator running. He liked the faucet at the kitchen sink which he'd learned had to be shut off in just the right way to keep it from dripping, and the clock on the wall that was perpetually five minutes slow. He even liked the kid down the street blaring his radio out an open window late into the night. The place felt lived in, something he hadn't experienced in a really long time.

He grabbed a coffee cup out of the dish strainer and filled it with water from the tap. He took a gulp, and then smiled when the phone rang and the machine picked up immediately. The tenants had recorded reggae music in the background and took turns speaking.

"This is Terri ..."  
"And Rick. You've missed us ..."  
"And we can't say we're sorry."  
"Leave a message, and we'll get back to you ..."  
"When we return from sunny, beautiful Barbados. I know - can you believe it!"  
"You gotta love Bob Barker."

Chris laughed softly as he used the rest of the contents of his cup to water the couple's Chia pet. He always got a kick out of that message.

Whoever was on the other end of the line hung up, and Chris plopped down on Rick and Terri's at least fifteen-year-old couch. He tried sensing his family - Paige and Phoebe were sleeping finally, as was Wyatt among the elves. And Piper ...

"Ah!" He shook the sensation out of his mind. "I did not want to know that!"

He pulled the remote control out from under a couch cushion and turned on the muted TV to whatever channel Rick and Terri had left it on. It was one of those black-and-white shows from the fifties where the mom wore pearls and heels while she vacuumed and the dad knew everything there was to know in life and shared a bit of that information with his sons at the end of every episode. It looked like the youngest boy had broken a window or some other stupid thing that only the screw-up youngest son ever did, and now he was trying to hide it from his parents, who, Chris knew, would only hug him and send him on his way after a stern lecture on telling the truth. He rolled his eyes at the TV and opened the window on the opposite wall to hear what that soon-to-be-deaf kid down the street was blaring tonight. The song pounded lyrics of despair and hopelessness typical of this time period's perpetual angst. Like any of these people knew what real pain was. Chris sighed. It wasn't exactly easy listening in his state of mind.

He shut the window again, but thedriving beat came through the glass. It wasn't easy waiting to save the world with nothing to do in the meantime, so Chris lay back on the couch and unconsciously focused on that beat which was made more incessant by the kid pressing "repeat." Before he knew what he had done, he'd dozed off with the song in his head to serve as a soundtrack to his dreams - first baby Wyatt fell into a black, bottomless abyss, and Chris dove in after him. But as he turned over in midfall, he saw Wyatt back up at the edge of the chasm waving good-bye. Suddenly he saw fire gutting P3, and then missiles flying toward San Francisco, and those same missiles deflected back to their bases, and people melting at their impact, and Wyatt playing with blocks, and all the demons of the underworld rising in the air to be selected for their usefulness or sent into oblivion. He felt himself inside the mind of one of those demons, heard his bones popping as Wyatt squeezed him until he hovered limp and helpless, and the darkness enveloped him -

Chris opened his eyes before he and the demon died, but the fear he'd felt in the dream had caused his body to go both numb and rigid at the same time. It took him a moment to will himself to bend a finger, but once he had, the ability to move returned to all his limbs. He sat up on the couch and glanced at the clock on the VCR above the now snowy picture on the television. 3:15 in the morning. He sensed his family again - all sleeping, a luxury he should not have allowed himself, especially after that adrenaline rush left him feeling more drained than ever. He ran both his hands over his face and felt the bristles of a beard starting. It would be nice to be like other twenty-something guys, fresh out of college with no bigger worry than getting a close shave for some big interview. But at the same time, he was not like his mother; he had long ago accepted that a normal life was not for him.

He got up and turned off the TV. Maybe he could orb to some glacier in the Artic and let the momentary blast of cold wake him up. But then again, he needed to keep orbing to a minimum now that the Titans would be hunting whitelighters. He certainly wouldn't want to change history by becoming the first whitelighter victim.

He stood by the window a moment. The music kid had finally gone to bed, and the street was utterly quiet. He raised the window, crawled out onto the fire escape, and stepped down the stairs as noiselessly as he could.

At street level, the air seemed even more hot and humid than it had been all this night. It was probably because the wall of buildings on either side trapped it and forbade any kind of circulation. So, even in this heat, he shoved his hands in his pockets as if shielding them from bitter cold and headed for the open air of the highway, striking the time-honored figure of a guarded and introspective youth.

Chris had always thought it strange how a five minutes' walk could mean the difference between oil-stained asphalt, cracked sidewalks and graffiti - and wooded splendor. Maybe that was one of the reasons he loved this city so much. True, the occasional semi would pass even at this ungodly hour, throwing up the smell of burning diesel, but for the most part, he could breathe easier out here.

He watched his feet move through the grassy shoulder, the color of his shoes becoming gradually more distinct as he drew closer to the light of a street lamp, and then losing hue just as gradually as he moved away until it was barely discernable. It was a stupid thing to focus on, he knew, but he was trying not to dwell on the images of his dream.

It wasn't like he didn't have dreams just like it every night, either as a hodgepodge of images as he'd just had or as full-blown reenactments of memories. He hated those. He'd once asked Bianca if she'd ever heard of dreams so coherent and accurate, and she'd said only in latent clairvoyants. His life could have been worse, he supposed - he could have been like Aunt Phoebe and live with seeing things in his waking hours, too.

He snapped his gaze up at the squeal of hydraulic brakes and a piercingly loud horn. A couple hundred yards away, where the highway curved sharply, a truck was swerving into the far lane to avoid hitting a man dancing between the road and a car parked on the shoulder. He continued dancing even as the truck drove on. Chris started running to him.

"Hey!" he yelled.

The man didn't acknowledge him, but instead twirled around and over into the middle of the road like a three-year-old trying to get dizzy. And just like a three-year-old, he fell when his equilibrium failed. Chris shook his head and squinted to make him out more clearly. "Hey, get out of the road!"

He was close enough to hear the man laugh at the sight of him running. Chris had no time to wonder what could be remotely funny about his running, as he saw the headlights of another semi rounding the corner. Without a thought, Chris raised his hand and sent the man hurtling to safety on the other side of the parked car. He threw him harder than he'd intended, but a few bruises were better than what would have been splattered all over that road.

The wind in the wake of the semi blew Chris's hair up in wild directions as he finally reached the man and turned him over on his back. He had stopped laughing and stared up in awe. Chris didn't notice the look. He was too angry.

"What's the matter with you! Are you crazy!"

The man just sat himself upright, not taking his eyes off Chris. "Are ... are you an angel?"

Chris calmed down enough to let out in a sigh one of his mother's infamous sayings"Oh, crap."

He helped the man to his feet, but when he let go, the wobble of a drunk was still there.

"I always believed in you guys, but I just never thought I'd actually meet an angel," the man spluttered with enough alcohol on his breath to make Chris's eyes water.

"You got a name?" Chris asked as he put a hand out to steady the man.

"Pete."

"Okay, well, Pete, is that your car?"

Pete nodded and tried to straighten his clothes and flatten his fly-away hair in an attempt to look presentable for this "angel." Chris rolled his eyes, took Pete's arm in one hand, and opened the back door with the other. Pete half-sat, half-lay down across the seat, and Chris had to lift one leg inside himself. He leaned against the car after shutting the door and looked up at the stars that seemed to him to represent the Powers-That-Be, in whatever time period they happened to be. "So now you've got me hauling drunks home. Don't they have cabs for that?"

He slid into the driver's seat and glanced at Pete in the rearview mirror. "Where do you live?"

Pete waved his hand in a vague direction. "Over there."

Chris sighed and turned on the reading light to check the glove compartment for the registration. The address was in one of the buildings near Rick and Terri's place.

"At least I'm not driving to the other side of town." He looked down at the ignition. "Where are your keys?"

Pete felt absently in his pockets. "I think I lost 'em." He pulled himself up and leaned forward between the driver's and front passenger seats. "Have you always been my guardian angel, or did you just come to me?"

"I'm not an angel!" Chris yelled a little more vehemently than necessary. He blew out a breath to calm himself a little. "Look, just sit back, don't talk, and try not to breathe on me."

Pete obeyed, and Chris focused on the ignition, trying to visualize the parts inside the mechanism for a trick which, ironically enough, Wyatt had taught him. He positioned his fingers in a rough approximation of holding a key, rotated them as if twisting open a bottle cap, and magically made all the necessary connections to start the car.

Pete couldn't stay silent for long, and the car had been in motion less than thirty seconds before he was back between the front seats.

"So, what do I do?" he asked.

"Excuse me?"

"You know, about the problem."

"Uh ..." Chris frowned. "You gotta be a little more specific."

"What kind of angel are you?"

"I'm not an angel," he repeated.

"Then what was that thing you did with your hands? Magic?" It was amazing how quickly Pete's alcohol-impaired thoughts jumped on this new track. "Do you know how much the networks would pay for -"

"Yeah, uh, you know what?" Chris interrupted. "You got me. I'm an -" he hesitated, but realized he would have to embrace the role sooner or later. Besides, the guy was too drunk to remember this anyway, and if he did, who'd believe him? "I'm an angel."

"I knew it. So about my problem?"

"Why don't you give me the nutshell version."

"My job, you know." Pete sat back in the seat. "She's gonna leave me. I know it."

"Huh?"

"'Can't hold down a job,' she says. 'My mother was right about you,' she says. But I really thought this one would stick. How am I gonna tell her? She's gonna take my kids. I can feel it."

"Let me get this straight. You were out there playing Chicken with a truck because you lost your job?" Chris was starting to get a lot of his anger back.

Pete just mumbled. "What else can I do?"

"Well getting plastered - both meanings - isn't the answer. You were going to leave your wife with those kids to raise by herself? How selfish can you get?"

Pete couldn't answer because Chris's mind was somewhere else.

"It's not like she doesn't deserve to have a little help. She's just got a job, she's just got to save the world every other day - so, hey, let's give her one more thing to worry about. I mean, sure, you'll be there to see the oldest off to kindergarten because that's what dads do, right? But, you know, that three-year-old, he's not going to remember one way or the other whether you were a good dad, so it's probably better for everybody if you just accept your calling and move on now. Nevermind that his mom can't move on herself. Nevermind that every day of his life he'll hear how great his dad is, but he'll never get to see one shred of proof. And a few letters are going to make up for that? Can you get any more selfish, Leo?"

"Um, my name's Pete, and they're girls."

Chris glanced back at him as though seeing him for the first time.

"That's my building," Pete said timidly.

Chris pulled into an empty space, turned off the engine, and stared at the steering wheel.

Pete looked from the door of his building to the back of his angel's head. "I don't have my keys."

Chris flicked his wrist towards the building. "Door's open."

They both sat in the car for a moment before Chris opened his door and got out.

"Just don't leave them behind. That's all I'm saying." He let the door slam shut and started walking down the street toward Rick and Terri's apartment.

Dwelling on the failings of his father was the last thing he needed to be doing right now. Leo had embraced his calling as an elder just as Chris had reached the age when he was able to form some fragmentary memories. Up until the day his mother died, they had never been clear enough for him to remember Leo's face - he'd had to rely on pictures for that - but he did have a few vague impressions, the strongest of which involved him racing his father from the manor's front door to the dining room table. He had fallen and skinned his knees on the hardwood floor, but Leo had picked him up and healed him. But it had been more than the glow from his hand that had stopped Chris's crying - it had been the kiss on his cheek and the raspberries on his belly that had made the day okay again.

"Get a grip," he told himself angrily as he climbed into the apartment through the window. He wouldn't be able to work up the nerve to hasten Leo's promotion if he kept thinking like that.

He glanced at the VCR clock. 4:00. Just a few more hours before he revealed himself to them.

"I'd better get started on that potion." He turned on the light in the stove hood and started pulling ingredients from Terri's cabinets. Some were cooking herbs, but some came from places Terri would most likely never have gone. They were the items he'd "borrowed" from shops in Chinatown or from the cabinets of unsuspecting covens; he'd been orbing in and out of these places without anyone seeing him and stockpiling the ingredients here for the past few days. He'd decided weeks ago that he should go in armed, just in case Phoebe didn't have enough, for there was always the possibility that his very presence could change Meta's reaction. He brought out Terri's heaviest pot - it wasn't as heavy as the one his mom had always used, but maybe it could handle magic.

The precise nature of the task would seem to preclude any extraneous thoughts about his family, but while the brew bubbled on the stove, visions of potion-making demonstrations from any one of the sisters threatened to distract him. He thought about how his mother rarely measured anything, the chef in her coming out in her preference for pinches and dashes. And then there was Phoebe's way of checking off ingredients from a list. He'd most liked Paige's method as a child - she took recipes simply as helpful suggestions, for what was witchcraft good for if not for a little experimentation? And if a potion blew up in her face, she chalked it up as a learning experience since nobody got hurt.

The sun was starting to rise by the time he finished the potion and began filling a few vials. He held one up in the light. "Purple's good. Purple won't work, but purple's good."

He slipped the vials in his jacket pocket and placed Terri's herbs back in their appropriate place. The kitchen was still a mess, though, and these ingredients, and certainly the remains of the potion, were not exactly the kind of thing he'd want to pour down the sink.

"Let the object of objection become as a dream  
As I cause the seen to be unseen."

The potion and ingredients vanished, and Chris put away the pot. Paige had been right all those years ago when she'd first shown him where to find it in the Book of Shadows - that was a handy-dandy little spell.

Chris sat down in a chair at the kitchen table, lay his head on his arm, and watched the sun come up over the buildings across the street. Sunrises seemed different in this time; no, Wyatt couldn't blot out the sun, but sometimes he could make Chris wish he hadn't lived to see another morning. There had been many such times in his life, and the worst of those times came unbidden as exhaustion from fighting sleep overcame him just as the most important day of his new future dawned...

He watched the memory as though from outside himself, but at the same time, he was inside that fourteen-year-old body which materialized inside a jewelry store alongside a boy a head taller and at least twenty pounds heavier. Wyatt was neatly dressed, his hair neatly combed, while everything about Chris had been left to its own devices. The contrast in their appearances didn't seem to bother them, however, as Chris smiled when he surveyed the remnants of the security cameras that had been crushed before the brothers even arrived.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side," he said as he walked around a display case to the register. Without touching anything, Chris turned on the computer, hacked his way into the store's price list, and systematically marked down everything to a dollar.

"Now, any bum off the streets _can_ walk in here," he said, mocking the salesman who had so rudely assumed earlier in the day that this shabby-looking kid couldn't possibly afford to buy his mother a birthday present.

But while telekinetically popping rings out of their boxes inside the display case, Chris noticed that Wyatt wasn't doing anything. Or, more specifically, he was doing only one thing: staring at a particularly famous, particularly huge diamond that the store had on display in its own special case.

"Do you know what kind of stuff I can do with a diamond like that?" Wyatt spoke more to himself than to Chris.

"Make about a hundred invisibility potions, I guess, but it's nothing you can't conjure. I mean, you've done it before," Chris answered, referring fondly to their Great Clean-Out Vegas Caper. They had forced the dice with impunity, making a lot of people very happy; at least one casino had needed to shut down for the night.

But the look in Wyatt's eyes said he was not thinking about invisibility. What he was thinking, Chris didn't know, but he was suddenly very worried.

"Let's get out of here."

Instead of listening, Wyatt orbed the diamond out of the case and into his hand, but just as it reached a fully solid state, Chris caused it to levitate a few inches above Wyatt's palm.

"Don't get your prints on it!" Chris's voice cracked, modulating from the still-not-deep-enough-to-suit-him pitch that he'd had the past couple of months to the high-enough-to-fit-in-a-boys'-choir pitch that he'd had the first few months of high school - the voice that, coupled with his slight frame and the fact that he had yet to come into his growth spurt, had earned him the nickname "Christine" until Wyatt beat up a few people. "The cops'll find out," he continued.

"And that scares me how?"

They'd tell Mom, and then she'd kill you."

Wyatt smiled and shook his head. "I'd like to see her try."

Something in the way Wyatt spoke made Chris more uneasy, but he shook off the feeling. "Put it back."

Wyatt moved away from the diamond. "You put it back."

Chris glanced at the case. "You know I can't orb it through the glass."

"You're the one who's always saying witch power beats whitelighter power. Now prove it."

"Put it back!"

"No," Wyatt said simply before orbing out and leaving Chris holding the diamond in mid-air.

Chris huffed and stared at the glass. He could do no more than give it a try.

"Let the glass become as air ..."

He couldn't think of anything good to complete the spell, so he shrugged and said the first thing that came to mind.

"For I have no time to spare?"

The glass vanished, and Chris laughed nervously, fully expecting the backfire any second now. When it didn't come, he let out a relieved sigh. "It worked."

He spun around at the sound of someone orbing in. It wasn't Wyatt.

"Busted," Paige said, crossing her arms over her dressing-gown.

"What were you thinking?" Piper paced in front of the living room couch and yelled at him after his usually sympathetic aunt told every little detail of the scene she'd orbed into.

"I just wanted to look at it," he lied. If there was one thing the Halliwell boys didn't do, it was rat each other out.

"At one o'clock in the morning?"

"What's going on?" Wyatt asked as he came downstairs in a convincing performance of someone awakened by the noise.

"I'll tell you what's going on. I had to call my sister from half-way across the country because I can't keep track of my son, who, as it turns out, was knocking off jewelry stores."

"Why didn't you send Wyatt?" Chris muttered and wished the adults could see the look his brother shot him.

"Because Wyatt would just clean up your mess and keep it all hush-hush. And what was that with the cameras and rings - redecorating?"

Wyatt's face momentarily took on an air of concentration. "It's fixed, Mom."

"Thank you, Wyatt." She glared back at Chris. "But that doesn't change anything. You can't keep relying on your brother to bail you out."

Chris averted his eyes and stared at the empty fireplace. Piper sat in a chair across from him and rested her head on her fist. "Look at me. How do you think I felt when I checked in on you, and you weren't in bed? You know better than to go missing in this house. I thought maybe this demon we're after had gotten you. But no, you were out -" Piper closed her eyes as if the rest of her sentence would sicken her. "What if a darklighter attacked while you were playing your little trick? You would've had no way to vanquish him -"

"I'm not helpless -"

"That's not the point!" She motioned to include Paige. "One day we're not going to be around to watch your back, and the way you abuse your powers and treat them like toys, you won't be ready!"

She shook her head and lowered her voice. "I've tried to raise you both with that understanding, that your craft is not to be taken lightly. I just don't understand what I did wrong."

"Nothing!" Chris tried to assure her. "I'm sorry, Mom." His voice broke for the second time that night.

She stared into his face as if testing his sincerity, and then shook her head again. "Go to bed. I'm too tired and too mad to have this discussion right now. And if you leave that room, so help me ..."

He went to his bed, but not to sleep. After several minutes of lying awake, he turned over at the sound of Wyatt orbing into his room. He sat up and turned on his bedside lamp.

"Thanks for covering down there," Wyatt whispered and sat at the foot of his bed.

"If you had just put it back, I wouldn't be in this mess."

"No, if you could astral project an image of angelic slumber for when the warden checks on us, you wouldn't be in this mess."

"I'm not lying anymore."

"Chris -"

"I mean it. I've never seen her so upset." He sighed. "I dread tomorrow."

"Come on. What's she gonna do, blow you up?" Wyatt mimicked Piper's power, directing it as his own head, which exploded in a flash of orbs and came back together in a second. He shrugged as if to say "No big deal."

The show did get a smile out of Chris. "I think that's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."

"So aside from the gross-out factor, what's to worry about?"

Wyatt's confidence in Piper's leniency lasted only through the night, for when he shook Chris awake in the morning, he seemed more concerned than Chris had ever seen him. But when Chris asked him what was wrong, he simply shoved a letter at him.

"From Dad."

"What does Leo want now?" Chris tossed the letter on his nightstand.

"Same as ever, I guess. What are you going to write?"

"Same as ever - school probably, maybe throw in a girl here and there. I should write something really perverted, see if he actually reads them."

"I doubt it. Mom probably stuffs them in a shoebox and places it at an altar to 'My Dear Leo,'" he finished in a falsetto.

"Shut up." Chris threw a pillow at him. Wyatt caught it and stared at the floor for a moment.

"Look, I, um ..." he began. "Mom sent Paige to get Phoebe last night."

"Yeah?"

Wyatt started to explain, but at a loss for words, instead waved his hand toward the wall. An image of Piper's bedroom appeared. She was sitting on her bed when Paige and Phoebe orbed in.

"What's wrong? Any news on that demon?" Phoebe asked.

"No ... well, yes. I tried scrying for it but kept hitting this house, and so I did a cleansing spell, but nothing. But that's not why I called you. I just -" she sighed, blinking back tears. "I just needed my sisters."

"Oh, sweetie, what is it?" Phoebe climbed into bed with her and wrapped her arms around her big sister while Paige sat in the middle of the bed and lay her hands on Piper's knees.

"It's Chris. We're just so lost."

Chris turned to Wyatt. "Are you trying to cheer me up? Because you're failing miserably."

Wyatt just nodded for Chris to pay attention to the image.

"Honey, it's just part of being a teenager," Paige said. "Your little boy's growing up."

"I know, and that's what scares me. He's sneaking out all the time now. Who knows what he's doing out there - if it's worse than what he did tonight."

"What did he do?" Phoebe asked.

"Tried to steal a very large diamond."

"Oh. Good taste, though." Phoebe tried to lighten the mood.

"Phoebe!" Piper ran her hands through her hair. "I've got a demon I can't find but who is apparently hiding in my house, and then Paige comes home and shows me I've got Dillenger living here to boot!"

"I thought Dillenger was a bank robber," Paige muttered.

"Can we focus here?"

"I'm sorry, honey," Paige said. "But I think you're overreacting a little bit. Kids do stupid things. He's always been a good boy -"

"No, there's no overreacting here. And the point is he's not a boy anymore. You saw what he did to those cameras, Paige. What if that had been somebody's throat? I'm afraid he's going to hurt someone." She paused. "Maybe Grams was right. Maybe men can't handle magic."

"But Wyatt hasn't -"

"Wyatt's different, Phoebe, you know that."

The sisters were silent for a moment before Paige asked, "What are you going to do?"

"What else can I do?" Piper looked as though the thought was killing her. "I have to bind his powers."

"Piper -" Phoebe started.

"It's too much," Paige finished.

"I'm not saying permanently. Just until I find out what's wrong with him."

Wyatt erased the scene from the wall. "It goes on like that."

Chris had long since crossed his arms in front of him in a habitual defensive gesture, and now he merely nodded in response to his brother.

"I just ... wanted to give you a heads-up, you know, to be careful what you drink for a while."

He nodded again, and Wyatt orbed out at the sound of knocking on Chris's door. Piper opened it and carried in two mugs.

"I brought you some coffee."

Chris's breathing grew heavier. She was really going to do it.

She tried to hand the coffee to him, but when he wouldn't take it, she set it beside Leo's letter on the nightstand and sat down in a chair near the bed. Chris stared at the coffee.

After about a minute, Piper spoke. "Chris, if you meant what you said last night about being sorry, you're going to have to talk to me."

"I did mean it," he mumbled. "You just didn't believe me."

"I want to believe you." Piper sipped her coffee and glanced at his mug. "Drink your coffee. It's getting cold."

He shattered the mug against the wall instead, causing Piper to jump in her seat. He stood up from bed and started pacing.

"You try to slip it in coffee, like it's some kind of special treat?" he yelled.

"What are you talking -"

"Being a witch is the only good thing about me!"

"Don't say that. You're a whitelighter - you're supposed to be everything that's good and -"

"I am NOT a whitelighter!" His lower lip was trembling now. He pointed at Leo's letter. "I have nothing in common with him." He stared at his mother's confusion. How could she not know what was wrong? He let out a contemptuous laugh. "I take that back. He did give me this." He orbed out with Piper's voice echoing in his mind.

"Chris, get back here right now!"

Had it been dark, he would have gone to the highest point on the Golden Gate Bridge, but as it was, he just picked a random mountain and sat the whole day creating elaborate fantasies of how everyone would be sorry if he died. He closed himself off to their calls and to Paige's senses, and Wyatt knew him well enough not to disturb him.

So when he returned to the manor that night, he was completely unprepared.

Phoebe was sitting impassively in the conservatory floor, rocking back and forth with something held tight against her. The unreality of it made him slow to comprehend what it was.

"Mom?"

A pair of hands turned him around roughly. "Where were you?" Paige asked frantically as she hugged him. He didn't return the hug, but just stood limp.

"You didn't answer our calls," Paige continued. "And when I couldn't sense you -"

"Mom?"

Paige's face started to screw up, but she glanced quickly at Phoebe's empathic mirroring of her emotions and fought down the tears.

"Come to the kitchen." Paige pulled on his arm, but he was extraordinarily immovable for someone who felt his legs might give way at any moment.

Paige must have thought he was waiting for an explanation. "Chris ... it ... the demon ... when we got here, it shimmered ... and Wyatt was just standing there ... and then he orbed ... He went after it, I guess. I've been scrying, but I can't find him." Paige broke off. Phoebe had started crying uncontrollably. "Come to the kitchen."

Chris blinked his eyes a couple of times and wet his lips. He realized he was shaking all over. Why was it so hard to think straight?

"Where ... Where's Leo?"

"Your dad's already been here. I couldn't ... He couldn't -" Paige swallowed. "Please, just come with me."

Chris looked toward the heavens. "Leo," he called calmly. Phoebe's cries grew more intense.

"Chris -"

"Leo," he called loud enough to be heard. Phoebe started wailing.

"Don't -"

"Leo!" Chris and Phoebe screamed together.

Paige shook him. "Stop it! You're hurting her!"

Chris orbed out of his aunt's grip, and breaking a decade old interdict, went Up There.

The Elders didn't seem surprised to see him, and when he asked in a monotone "Where is he?" they parted to reveal a small knot of golden-robed confidants gathered around a seated figure. The knot, too, made way for him, and the figure stood and removed his hood.

Chris would remember in later years that his father's eyes were bloodshot from crying - bloodshot and suddenly, painfully old. But now as he walked toward Leo, he was comparing what he saw in front of him with the wedding picture in his mother's bedroom, and he was thinking how unfair it was that she should age, that she should die, and Leo should remain the same.

So even though Leo, like Wyatt, was a head taller than him, Chris struck his father as soon as he reached him. He pounded him twice before Leo caught his fists, forcing them down to his sides, and trapped his arms by pulling his son in close. Chris buried his face in Leo's chest - his robes smelled of Piper - and finally let everything out.

"I hate you," he sobbed, "I hate you," he breathed in his mother's scent, "I hate you," he clutched at Leo's back, "I hate you," he gathered the robes between his fingers, "I hate you," he held on for dear life ...

Chris woke with tears falling down his face in rapid succession, but the panic that he'd slept through his cue momentarily superceded the sorrow of the dream until his senses assured him that, while cutting it close, he still had a little time. Of all the days to have that dream.

He wiped furiously at his eyes and stood up. In the bathroom, he found a half-empty pack of disposable razors. He could at least clean himself up to meet them.

He lathered his face with no problem, but he had to wait a minute before he brought the razor to his skin - his hands were still shaking.

Chris used those few minutes spent shaving to focus his mind on creating a perpetual sense of the sisters' whereabouts, so that by the time he finished up in the bathroom their chatter had become mingled with his own thoughts. It was exhausting work, keeping such close tabs on them, and he didn't know how long he could maintain it. But the dream had served a purpose, after all, by reminding him of a mistake he could never afford to make again - he would not leave them alone. While he had wasted a day in fourteen-year-old self-pity, the Power of Three had been broken, and he had become, in essence, an orphan. And while he had indulged in a fit of acrimonious grief Up There, enough hours passed on earth for Phoebe and Paige to follow Piper in death.

How could such a low-level demon - one their ancestors didn't deem important enough to even put in the Book - manage to vanquish the Charmed Ones? And why couldn't Wyatt save them? Chris had never actually seen the demon himself, but from his mother's description, Wyatt should have been able to destroy it in a literal blink of an eye. Wyatt did destroy it, when all was said and done, though he never talked about it, not even so much as to say what kind of demon it had been.

"What if Wyatt -" Bianca had started to ask during one of their rare moments alone, but he had cut her off, knowing what she would say because he had thought it countless times himself.

"No," he had whispered into her hair. "Even at his worst, Wyatt would never bring himself to hurt Mom."

But there were times when Chris wondered if the only thing keeping that belief alive was his own stubborn will to believe it.

"Just remember, protect baby Wyatt, and you protect the Charmed Ones - keep them alive for our future," Bianca had told him just before he opened the portal - her hope, not his. He could save Piper and her sisters from a demon that would attack in fifteen years? It was too much to hope for. Who was he kidding? Saving Wyatt was too much to hope for.

Piper was in her car, singing a cartoon theme song to Wyatt, who sucked obliviously on a pacifier. They were about ten minutes from home, where Paige was flipping through the Book of Shadows.

His pulse quickened and he fingered the vials in his pocket, then slipped an old pair of Rick's sunglasses in with them. However nervous he was, he would have to keep his wits about him. He could show them nothing of what he really felt.

He went to open a window with a random curiosity about whether the heat wave had abated yet. The music kid must have been home sick or playing hooky from school, because he had his stereo on earlier than usual. But under the racket, Chris heard a dull murmur, as if from a crowd of people. He stuck his head out the window and glanced down the street, where, sure enough, a crowd had gathered in front of a building cordoned off with police tape. It was Pete's building. In the few minutes he had left, Chris felt somehow obliged to check out what had happened.

When he approached the scene, Chris saw a female officer leading two little girls, perhaps eight and ten, down the steps of the building and into an unmarked police car. Their eyes were staring vacantly ahead; neither child seemed to notice the frenzy surrounding them.

"What do we got?" Chris heard a suited man ask.

"Hey, Inspector," said a uniformed officer. "Murder/attempted suicide. We got the perp on his way to County. They think he'll make it. Victim's his wife, Maureen Torenson, 38. He tried to get the kids, too, but they locked themselves in the bathroom. Neighbors say when they found the guy, he kept mumbling something about an angel saving him from a truck so he could take his family along with him. What a screw-up of an angel, huh?"

"Should have let the truck hit him." The Inspector shook his head. "I hate these nut-jobs. All right, clear these people back, and somebody find out where that music's coming from. I can't hear myself think."

Chris stumbled into an adjoining alley and doubled over behind a dumpster - he was going to throw up.

"Hey!" he heard the uniformed officer yell to where the music kid sat with his stereo in the window. "Turn that crap off!"

Chris couldn't have known what kind of obscene gesture the kid made, but he did hear him turn the music up louder.

_"Did you find something?"_ Phoebe asked in his mind.

_"Do Titans ring a bell?"_ Paige answered.

"No, not yet," he moaned. His breath was coming in short shallow bursts. God, he had to calm down.

He saw his mother warning him from inside a circle of candles. "_Innocents could get hurt…"_

The music stopped as Chris momentarily lost control of his powers and pulled the stereo from the window, sending it crashing to the sidewalk.

_"People may die before their time,"_ Piper's voice echoed again.

No, he'd done it before - he'd screwed up before. God help him, he'd screwed up. But he'd lived through it every time. Why not now?

_"I do know that because of the Elders' no orbing edict, that the only way they're gonna get another whitelighter is if one ..."_ Paige said.

Phoebe shook her head. _"Oh, no way, Paige, forget about it."_

"_You could change everything_." His mother had looked at him with such pity and fear in her eyes - pity that he was in a position to actually consider exiling himself, and fear that he wouldn't be able to live with the changes he made.

"God!" he whispered and shut his eyes.

_"Witch's advocate, there are evil gods running around on the loose that we should eliminate before Wyatt gets home."_

Wyatt. No. This could not be happening. He could not let this happen. But he couldn't go now, not with this. Not after he'd stolen those kids' mother just as his own had been - but he couldn't not go.

"Baby, just let go," he heard Bianca say the same thing she always said when his plans didn't pan out, which was more often than he cared to admit. "Let go," she'd say if his nerves before a battle caused his hands to shake, or if he had to decide which of his friends he would send on a suicide mission. Yes, she'd taught him how to let go, how to switch off his emotions, though she'd sworn she could never let herself switch off again. She'd shown him how to focus his entire being on one thought, to the exclusion of everything else. She'd guided him to that inner calm that gave him the single-minded clarity to get the job done when it had to be done, so that he could tremble or cry or scream only after it was all over. And though he'd never become as good at it as Bianca had been when she'd killed people for a living, though he sensed another fraction of his humanity slipping away from him every time he deadened himself, he could do it again. He straightened himself up and took a few deep breaths. He could concentrate on one thing, and one thing only. Nothing else mattered. He couldn't afford to let it. He could ignore his mother's lectures on morality that played in his memory, his father's hopelessness that threatened to envelope him at every moment, and his grandfather's assurance that he would never be alone that mocked him. For he was alone here in a time that was not his own, among people who could never truly know him. One purpose would make it bearable - whatever he had to do to fulfill that purpose, he would do it. He would lie, cheat, kill - even become indistinguishable from a demon, if need be - but he would do it. One way or another, Wyatt would not grow up to lay waste to the world, to lay waste to his life.

At the opening of the alley, he saw pass the car carrying the two children who had lost their mother. Maureen Torenson was the first casualty in a war with Destiny. She would not be the last.

_"Okay, fine. Bring on the earthquake causing gods."_

_"Watch this."_ Paige orbed in place.

Chris put on his sunglasses. "Showtime," he said, and disappeared in a swirl of white light.

THE END

Citation of borrowed material: The dialogue from the show comes from "Chris-Crossed" and "Oh, My Goddess, Part 1."


End file.
